Ramallah, occupied West Financial institution – Israel has endured with arresting dozens of Palestinians within the occupied West Financial institution and East Jerusalem because it conducts a prisoner launch with Hamas, the Gaza-based armed group.
Within the first 4 days of the continuing truce between Israel and Hamas, which started on Friday, Israel launched 150 Palestinian prisoners – 117 kids and 33 girls.
Hamas launched 69 captives – 51 Israelis and 18 individuals from different nations.
Over the identical 4 days, Israel arrested at the least 133 Palestinians from East Jerusalem and the West Financial institution, in response to Palestinian prisoner associations.
“As long as there is occupation, the arrests will not stop. People must understand this because this is a central policy of occupation against Palestinians and to restrict any kind of resistance,” Amany Sarahneh, spokesperson for the Palestinian Prisoners Society, advised Al Jazeera.
“This is a daily practice – its not just after October 7,” she added. “We actually expected more people to be arrested during these four days.”
The Qatar-mediated truce got here after 51 days of relentless Israeli bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip, which started on October 7, the day Hamas launched a shock assault on Israeli territory, killing about 1,200 individuals.
Israel has killed greater than 15,000 Palestinians within the Gaza Strip since then, the vast majority of them girls and youngsters.
On Monday, the unique four-day truce was prolonged for an additional two days, throughout which an extra 60 Palestinians and 20 captives are anticipated to be launched.
Beneath Israel’s 56-year army occupation of the West Financial institution and East Jerusalem, Israeli forces perform nightly raids into Palestinian houses, arresting 15 to twenty individuals on “calm” days.
Within the first two weeks after October 7, Israel doubled the variety of Palestinians in its custody from 5,200 individuals to greater than 10,000. That quantity included 4,000 labourers from Gaza who labored in Israel and had been detained earlier than later being launched again into Gaza.
Palestinian prisoner legal professionals and monitoring teams have recorded 3,290 arrests within the West Financial institution and East Jerusalem since October 7. In mid-November, 35-year-old Eyad Banat was arrested whereas he was streaming reside on TikTok. He was subsequently launched.
‘No guarantees with the occupation’
Because the truce started, the streets of Ramallah have been flooded with individuals welcoming the freed prisoners.
However the fear for Palestinian prisoners doesn’t finish after their launch. The vast majority of these freed are normally rearrested by Israeli forces within the days, weeks, months and years after their launch.
Dozens of those that had been arrested in a 2011 Israel-Hamas prisoner change had been rearrested and had their sentences reinstated.
Sarahneh mentioned it isn’t but clear whether or not Israel has supplied any ensures that it’ll not rearrest those that have been launched.
“There are no guarantees with the occupation. These people are liable to be rearrested at any point. The occupation always rearrests people who have been released,” she mentioned.
“The biggest evidence that these people may be rearrested is that the majority of people being detained now are freed prisoners,” she added.
Since October 7, the circumstances of Palestinians below arrest or in detention have severely declined. Many have complained of extreme beatings whereas six Palestinian prisoners have died in Israeli custody.
Most of the girls and youngsters launched through the truce have testified to the abuse they skilled in Israeli prisons.
A number of movies have additionally emerged in current weeks of Israeli troopers beating, stepping on, abusing and humiliating detained Palestinians who’ve been blindfolded, cuffed and stripped both partially or completely. Many social media customers mentioned the scenes introduced again recollections of the torture techniques utilized by United States forces in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib jail in 2003.
Along with extreme beatings, Israeli jail authorities halted medical consideration for Palestinian prisoners for at the least the primary week after October 7, together with for many who had been overwhelmed, in response to rights teams. Household visits in addition to routine lawyer visits had been stopped, the teams mentioned.
Prisoners had been beforehand entitled to a few to 4 hours exterior their cells within the yard, however that has now been lower to lower than an hour, in response to rights teams.
Overcrowded cells now usually home double the variety of detainees they had been constructed for with many sleeping on the ground with out mattresses, they mentioned.
Israeli jail authorities have additionally lower electrical energy and sizzling water, carried out cell searches, eliminated all electrical units together with TVs, radios, cooking slabs and kettles, and shut down the canteen, which prisoners use to purchase meals and primary provides corresponding to toothpaste.
